The Indian North-West Frontier from the Durand Line Agreement till the Uprising of 1897: The Role of Amir Abdur Rahman in the Light of British Colonial Reports

Abstract

The Indian North-West Frontier from 1893 to 1897 remained the centre of activities relating not only to Calcutta and London but also Kabul. After the Durand Line Agreement, the Frontier region came directly under the British sphere of influence, however, the colonial authorities were obsessed with the Russian threat. Thus, a vigilant eye was kept on every movement of the tribes a routine practice of the colonial administration. Nonetheless, during the 1897 uprising, the colonial administrators without any hesitation held the Amir of Afghanistan responsible for instigating the tribes against them only to abandon that stance a little afterwards. This alteration in the previous stance of the British not only created confusion among scholarship, rather it resulted in the emergence of two diverse views. Therefore, despite its importance, the role of Amir Abdur Rahman during these four crucial years hardly attracted necessary scholarly attention. This paper with a descriptive and analytical approach identifies the lacuna in the existing literature and emphasizes the importance of the aforementioned period. Besides, it also analyses the role of Amir Abdur Rahman in international politics.